Tabs

Friday, February 21, 2014

ONE MOTO SCRAMBLE: How The Hell Did We Make It...

Updates have been pretty sparse for the past couple months. The short of it is about 3 months ago I got my One Moto Show invite. 2.5 months ago we moved into our new shop space. ..and 2 months ago I started the Honda Dream 150 build, destined for the show. I knew there was no chance in getting this bike into a presentable form in 2 months time with my current schedule. I still work full time at a design consultancy in Chicago so my building hours are restricted to after 6pm and weekends. To put this timeline in perspective the Yamaha SR250 took just under 2 years.

So I took a month off.

It wasn't going to be enough, so I hired a good friend, and had many others jumping in from time to time to lend a hand. Every minute of help I had was the reason this bike made it to the show. At 5am on Wednesday the 5th we put our tools down, and at 8 am we left for Portland. A 40 hour straight drive through 2 major snow storms in a mini van on all-season tires. We punished our bodies (and that van) for 2 straight days with beef jerky and Redbull dinners. We began to lose count of the amount of cars and trucks abandoned in snowy ditches after it rounded the bend of 30. Instead we started tallying up lists of cars we'd never purchase based on their abandonment rate.

1. Crown Vic

2. Chevy Impala

3. Light weight RWD pick up truck

4. Tractor Trailer

The Chrysler Town & Country ended up being an almost perfect road trip vehicle. We Country'd the shit out of it for a total of 80 hours and it took it with class. We even averaged 24MPG with 4 grown-ass men and a tiny motorcycle on board. Somehow we made it there and back and had a hell of a time doing so. The show was amazing and in my opinion the snow packed streets of Portland just added to the excitement of it all. So did the floor mounted e-brake slide attempts with 7 people on board. We're from the Midwest. When it snows, you drive sideways. Thems the rules.

Here's a photo dump from the camera phones of the beloved crew who made this trip a success. I owe you all the beers.